While I have commented on the Indian Central Bank guidelines for mobile banking previously, it does require another look as it seems as if the bank have now confirmed these guidelines. It is not clear if the bank would move to a point where these guidelines will be enforced. If this is the intention my impression is that mobile payment is in a dire position in India as the guidelines do not serve to facilitate mobile payments, but rather to inhibit the growth of this important tool to empower so many people with financial services.

My position is based on the following points:

The fact that the guidelines prohibits the deployment of money remittance services by means of mobile payment. This has been one of the important drivers of mobile payments in other countries and it is not clear why the bank would limit mobile payments in India to be only for Rupee based transactions.

The limits on the value of transactions and daily limits imposed are so low that it would limit the deployment of services to (for instance) business users and agents. This has been the driver in many countries for the take-up of mobile payment services and it does not make sense to set these limits as this would almost close down these avenues for the growth in mobile banking.

The fact that all payment services must be available on all mobile networks is also strange as this would remove the incentive of mobile operators to offer mobile centric services to only their subscribers. Mobile operators were major drivers in most countries for the deployment of these services. By removing them from the equation, the RBI have effectively taken a major driver out of the eco-system.

The need for end-to-end (application level) encryption, basically eliminate the use of USSD, SMS and Browser-based payment solutions. It is only possible to conform to this requirement with SIM-resident applications or Java on the phone. Very few Indian solutions currently offers these options. Is it the intention of the bank that all service providers should change their channel strategy to conform to the guidelines?

The role of the MPFI and the requirement of them to develop the message formats for the industry is short-sighted as this has not been achieved anywhere. In countries where interoperable mobile payment schemes exist (from Austria to Zambia), these schemes developed out of economic drivers not via established industry bodies.

If the bank were to enforce the above guidelines, none of the existing deployments will conform, and mobile payment industry in India would be set back years.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published by Dow Jones & Company is one of the largest-circulation newspaper in the United State. Its online edition covers U.S. and international business and financial news and issues.

It is also commonly known to be the largest paid-subscription news site on the Web, with 980,000 paid subscribers in mid-2007. As of May 2008, an annual subscription to the online edition of the Wall Street Journal cost $119 for those who do not have subscriptions to the print edition. Even today to read the complete articles on the WSJ the subscription goes to $89 annually.

However you can now read the complete articles of WSJ.com following a simple trick mentioned below.

Surely you would have come across instances where you want to hide a file on your computer but not sure how this could be done. Here i am sharing a simple method that would help you hide folders on your PC. This would work on Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 platforms.

Firstly collect all your contents in to a folder that you intend to hide. Then download this simple and small software called the "Free Hide Folder" from here (size 743 KB). Install the software and execute it. It would ask you for a password, this password is for access this software itself.

Once you have set the password, opend the software and "Add File" that you intend to hide.. Thats it.. To undide the folder follow he same procedure. This is a very simple method of hiding your private folders especially when you are sharing your computer with others.

If you are interested in protecting your personal information, Free Hide Folder is just what you are searching for. With Free Hide Folder you will protect your files avoiding them to be being modified, seen or erased by other users. Well there are also alternate methods of hiding folders like hiding the file inside an JPG image (email me if you would like to know about this trick)

Intel recently announced it’s 6 core Xeon high performance processors which is based on it’s 45 nm process technology and is code named 7400 based on the Dunnington core, which is the last of the Penryn series. Intel designed the new Xeon processor for medium ranged companies for mostly data centers and Virtual Machines.

Xeon provides increased scalability and memory resources as well as greater reliability for data centers. These initial chips will be designed for Servers and not Desktops.

Intel’s Xeon quad-core offerings have already eroded AMD’s server market share. Part of the problem has been AMD’s inability to deliver it’s Barcelona quad core processor on time due to technical snags.

Some of the vendors already announcing Xeon 7400 servers include Sun Microsystems, HP, Dell, IBM, and Unisys. But what has this got to do with the average customer? Well nothing really, except don't be surprised to see 6 core desktop variants maybe as soon as next year.Pricing for this Xeon® 7000 sequence processors in quantities of 1,000 ranges from $856 to $2,729.

I have always believed that software development is an engineering discipline. Although software cannot be touched like other engineering structures, it should nevertheless be designed, constructed and quality assured according to the same engineering disciplines that one would use for construction of anything else. This is the way that we at Fundamo approach the building of our software and this is why we are so confident about the software's ability to deal with complexity.

I was therefore intrigues when reading the results of research done by Finextra and Mysis recently (read here). According to this research based on interviews with 100 product managers and directors at banks, IT complexity is viewed as the biggest obstacle to corporate transaction banking. The survey shows that 45% of banks believe that their ability is average to worse and that they are moving more and more of the functionality on-line to solve the problem. "At the top of the list of technical problems that banks say their customers want them to solve is greater integration with corporate systems and delivery of cross-border, multi-currency cash pooling services."

Anybody that worked on transactional systems would concur with these observations. One could possibly add that it is likely that the needs (and complexity) would increase substantially as markets develop and clients see more and more of need to be on-line and to perform financial transactions in realtime. What is the key thing that banks should do? Well, lets look at the art of engineering. The more complex the structure the more time is spent in designing and testing the architecture of the design. Get the architecture wrong and the bridge will collapse, get it right and even the construction is a breeze.

Banks should think carefully (and consult with experts) to get the architecture of their transactional systems right... and this is not a trivial task.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and has the second largest Muslim population in the world after Indonesia. The country is also listed among the "Next Eleven" economies. With a population of 175 million, a population growth of 2% and an average age of 21, this is a country with major economic growth potential (averaging almost 8% growth for the past five years). The country have almost a negligible Internet subscriber population (less than 200 000), yet 90 million mobile phone subscribers.

In addition to all of the above, a number of other factors make Pakistan an ideal market for the growth of mobile banking. These factors are the following:

A well-developed and balanced guideline to the development of branchless banking by the Pakistan Central bank exist. This guideline was published pro-actively and is state-of-the-art regulations that will support mobile banking development well.

A good mix of well-run local banks as well as international banks are present in Pakistan. Most banks have good management and are well funded. In an environment that is becoming more and more competitive, banks will be looking at ways to compete and develop unique selling points.

The five mobile operators are innovative and aggressive. All of them are backed by strong international shareholders with access to good international practices as well as resources.

A clear need exist with a large portion of the population dependent on international money remittances or running SMME businesses.

It is unlikely that all mobile banking/payment subscribers in the world will be served by one deployment. This is not practical and will be highly unlikely (if not impossible) given the current state of success in the markets. It is just not conceivably possible that all Smartmoney subscribers in the Philippines will all be converted to MTN Mobile Money system hosted in South Africa. In all the countries where mobile money deployments are successful, many (or at least more than one) deployments can be found.

It is therefore important to consider how subscribers to different mobile payment networks would be able to make payments to subscribers on other networks. Cellphone users are accustomed to phone subscribers on other networks. It stands to reason that they would expect to be able to pay subscribers on other networks. Unfortunately this is an extremely tough problem. Anyone suggesting a "easy" solution to this interoperability problem should not be taken seriously. The problem is multi-dimensional. A workable solution will have to consider many of the following aspects: technological problems, clearing and settlement challenges, legal and regulatory, consumer protection (including mechanisms to cater for disputes, warrenties and claims). The problem is almost unsurmountable.

So what is the way forwards? For a start one will be seeing many point-to-point solutions. (Two installations allowing bi-lateral agreements between each other). It is essential that interoperability is tested and experienced in these one-on-one situations first. We at Fundamo have now deployed sufficient installations running our technology (more than thirty) that make these one-on-one interoperable situations possible. After we see success with these, expect more complex network interoperable deployments to start appearing.

Also expect the industry to start working on solutions that will drive interoperability. A recent announcement in this regard is relevant.

The recent action of banks (Citi, Lloyds TSB, HSBC, Dubai Bank, National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) amongst others) in the AUE to contact their customers about a PIN compromise was widely reported (see here). The thing is that this is not new. It seems that the cloning of cards have turned into an epidemic (see for instance here,here, and here). It is actually relatively easy to clone a card (especially magstripe cards). One of the more common ways of doing this is by attaching a device to the cardslot on an ATM. (See the picture). It is also doubtful how diligently banks are reporting on these activities and how exposed we really are to this kind of crime (see one of my recent blogs).

The banks are responding to this threat by turning to chip based security. This is (rightly so) why a lot of effort is being placed on making all payment solutions EMV compliant. But indications exist that even these measures don't seem to be ample protection for the consumer (see here and here). I am of the strong believe that the only mechanism to defend against this kind of identity theft is to provide bank customers with a personal device that is connected all the time to the bank system with a secure chip in the device. In this way, the security is stored in a device that is carried by the customer and can only be unlocked with a private key, yet the bank can access the device anytime and anywhere in the world. The only device that this is possible today is the mobile phone. (Providing proper use is made of the security chip in the phone for banking too).

TraceSecurity is a company that gets contracted by banks to break into their security. The company employs specialists that can think like criminals and can crack all security. The advantage of getting this company in to break your security is that you can fix the holes before the real crooks try and break into your bank.

TraceSecurity recently announced that they could compromise more than a 1000 banks' security in less than 30 minutes. (read more here). What does this mean? Well for a start, holes exist in all banking systems. It is possible to break into banking systems, no matter how hard it is made. If banking systems are un-penetrable, they would also be un-usable. The question is not if it is impossible to break into systems, but rather if all transactions can be traced, that disputes can be handled effectively and that a legal basis exist to resolve security issues and to be able to prosecute succesfully in the case that breaches occur.

Even though it is possible to build mobile banking systems that are more secure and more difficult to break into than any other banking system. (see one of my previous blogs). It is also important to build traceability into mobile banking systems. It is important to have mechanisms available so that a solid legal framework can be built to protect both the bank and the subscriber. Because mobile banking security systems are often built by techies, solutions are unfortunately not all designed to cater for situations when security is breached - as it is always possible.

This was one of the most intriguing news articles that I have read in a while... I have always thought of BarclayCard as an icon in the business of credit cards. As far as I am concerned, BarclayCard invented the card payment systems - or at least made it mainstream in the 60's. They believed so much in Cards, that they incorporated "card" in their name: Barclaycard.

It was thus interesting when the CEO of Barclaycard (Antony Jenkins) said in a recent article that the future of plastic-cards was dead. (Read more here). He indicated that the chip currently embedded in an EMV-card can as easily be built into a mobile phone (or other devices). Of course he is right. I just wonder if they would consider changing their name to Barclaymobile or Barclaymo. I have checked both domains are still available...

In a recent survey conducted in the US (sponsored by Fiserv), it was found that 75% of US consumers would now consider using mobile banking if it was offered. This is up from 49% in 2006. (Read more here). As can be expected, security and cost were the two factors that concerned US consumers most. The most telling result of the survey in my opinion is that 23% of the sample surveyed have already used mobile banking in some form or another. I suppose that it was important for Fiserv to sponsor this research because they annouced the launch of their new mobile banking offering powered by MCom (from Australia) soon afterwards (here). This was a re-launch of the same solution announced in February 2008 (here). At least the solution will be available mid-2009 as a hosted solution as per the announcement. The press release also refer to this solution as "the industry's most complete mobile banking and payments solution"... It would be a good idea for Fiserv to do a little bit more research before making such an "un-informed" statement.

Today most of what we do on web is not just surf website, we execuate web applications like a Gmail or using Google reader. This next generation of web applications calls for a next generation web browser and what better could it be when the big daddy of internet releases its own browser. Yes we are referring to Google's own web browser Chrome.

As per Google they wanted to build a new browser from scratch, designed specifically to be used with all the new generation of Web applications. Google designed Chrome to be more stable than other browsers, chrome is designed to be faster than the competition, particularly in JavaScript performance. Google designed Chrome to be multithreaded.

Google's browser is based on the WebKit rendering engine that underlies Safari. It runs only on Windows for now. Mac and Linux versions are in development.

To fight malware and phishing attempts, Chrome is constantly downloading lists of harmful sites. Google also promises that whatever runs in a tab is sandboxed so that it won’t affect your machine and can be safely closed. The browser has an address bar with auto-completion features. Called ’omnibox’, Google says it offers search suggestions, top pages you’ve visited, pages you didn’t visit but which are popular and more.

Here is a quick video of 10 Features of Google Chrome

Here's another video on the official Google Chrome announcement dated September 2nd 2008.

Here's a new mobile phone for seniors. This time it's a slim cellphone called the Motorola MOTOFONE F3. Let's explore the details of this cellphone for the elderly.

The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 was targeted for customers in developing countries so it was designed to be user friendly. This handset is a great device for making and receiving calls. This is a good phone for seniors because seniors would prefer easy-to-use handsets. They would also benefit from this device because senior citizens mainly use mobile devices for making calls.

This Motorola phone sports a large display that would make it a good cellphone for seniors. The screen measures 34 x 43 mm and is called a ClearVision Display. The F3's display can really help seniors with less than perfect eyesight. It closely resembles the display of calculators and shows large numbers and other characters. The Motorola F3's screen shows black characters on the white background that are easy to read even when the users use the phone in bright sunlight.

Let's looks at this mobile phone for senior's keypad. The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 has a large keypad like other Motorola phones. Seniors will not usually go for handsets with flat keypads because they are difficult to use. However, the F3 has large keys that are divided up by curved rubber lines so seniors can easily distinguish between keys. The are also easy to press so any user will like them whether they are seniors or not.

Since the Motorola F3 is a basic phone, it is generally easy to use. It's a no frills phones that do not carry any complicated features that might befuddle a senior user. A senior would normally prefer to have a simple phone that provides a quick and easy way to make a call or send a message. The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 fits this description.

This cell phone for seniors also have a speakerphone which is a good feature for senior users. . A good speakerphone can allows a user to hold the phone away from a hearing aid to reduce feedback.

Another positive attribute for the F3 is its very affordable price. Its being offered for around $44 to $88 which is a good price. Elderly people seniors would usually prefer to have an affordable handset because they are usually on a fixed income. They do not have the luxury of going over their limited budgets so an affordable cellphone is their best option.

There you have it. Another good phone for seniors. Tune in to this site to get more info on cellphone for seniors.

Here's a new mobile phone for seniors. This time it's a slim cellphone called the Motorola MOTOFONE F3. Let's explore the details of this cellphone for the elderly.

The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 was targeted for customers in developing countries so it was designed to be user friendly. This handset is a great device for making and receiving calls. This is a good phone for seniors because seniors would prefer easy-to-use handsets. They would also benefit from this device because senior citizens mainly use mobile devices for making calls.

This Motorola phone sports a large display that would make it a good cellphone for seniors. The screen measures 34 x 43 mm and is called a ClearVision Display. The F3's display can really help seniors with less than perfect eyesight. It closely resembles the display of calculators and shows large numbers and other characters. The Motorola F3's screen shows black characters on the white background that are easy to read even when the users use the phone in bright sunlight.

Let's looks at this mobile phone for senior's keypad. The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 has a large keypad like other Motorola phones. Seniors will not usually go for handsets with flat keypads because they are difficult to use. However, the F3 has large keys that are divided up by curved rubber lines so seniors can easily distinguish between keys. The are also easy to press so any user will like them whether they are seniors or not.

Since the Motorola F3 is a basic phone, it is generally easy to use. It's a no frills phones that do not carry any complicated features that might befuddle a senior user. A senior would normally prefer to have a simple phone that provides a quick and easy way to make a call or send a message. The Motorola MOTOFONE F3 fits this description.

This cell phone for seniors also have a speakerphone which is a good feature for senior users. . A good speakerphone can allows a user to hold the phone away from a hearing aid to reduce feedback.

Another positive attribute for the F3 is its very affordable price. Its being offered for around $44 to $88 which is a good price. Elderly people seniors would usually prefer to have an affordable handset because they are usually on a fixed income. They do not have the luxury of going over their limited budgets so an affordable cellphone is their best option.

There you have it. Another good phone for seniors. Tune in to this site to get more info on cellphone for seniors.